{"id":66775,"date":"2025-08-13T15:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66775\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:27:09","slug":"nascar-insiders-sound-off-on-connor-zilisch-wrecking-svg-austin-hill-michael-mcdowell-aftermath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66775\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR insiders sound off on Connor Zilisch wrecking SVG, Austin Hill-Michael McDowell aftermath"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were two high-profile wrecks in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen. One involved Connor Zilisch and the other Austin Hill.<\/p>\n

For different reasons, both wrecks drew plenty of scrutiny. But at least one NASCAR insider, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, thinks Zilisch got off a little light for his wreck of Shane van Gisbergen<\/a> with about 15 laps to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cZilisch, prior to (his fall), the story even though he won his sixth race of the year, a lot of the story afterwards was going to be people asking him about the contact he had with SVG,\u201d Gluck said. \u201cBecause he wrecked SVG.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connor Zilisch went wide coming out of Turn 6, making his approach to Turn 7 a little difficult. Van Gisbergen gave him absolutely no room to work with.<\/p>\n

That prompted Gluck to wonder about the ethics of letting a driver back on the track. Was van Gisbergen at least partially at fault?<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, you could say, TV, Jamie McMurray made a really strong argument in terms of like, \u2018Hey, SVG\u2019s got to give a lane to let Zilisch back on the track after he had gone wide in that corner there,’\u201d Gluck said. \u201cIs that a thing? Who says you have to let a driver back in? Now I guess the alternative is if you don\u2019t let him back on the track, you may yourself get wrecked. But ethically do you have to leave a lane for a driver to re-enter? Why can\u2019t that driver just slide in behind you?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Connor Zilisch takeout of van Gisbergen benefited from Zilisch\u2019s mostly sterling reputation on the track. Austin Hill\u2018s wipeout of Michael McDowell \u2014 and nearly half the field \u2014 did not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Zilisch being Zilisch actually got kind of the benefit of the doubt there,\u201d Gluck said. \u201cWhere like Austin Hill in his incident certainly did not get the benefit of the doubt. I do not think Austin Hill intentionally wrecked Michael McDowell. What I do think is Austin Hill made a bad judgment there. But that wasn\u2019t the same as, \u2018I\u2019m going to intentionally right-rear somebody,\u2019 which by the way (Zilisch) denied this week to Dustin Albino of Jayski.\u201d<\/p>\n

Racing against Michael McDowell for P2, Austin Hill got to the inside of his left quarter panel. The two cars made contact, and McDowell quickly slammed into the wall. Soon after, dirt was in the air, and multiple cars came piling into the area.<\/p>\n

In total, 16 cars were involved in this wreck. Several days were ruined.<\/p>\n

Gluck was surprised that Hill, like Connor Zilisch, was as aggressive as he was. Unlike Zilisch, Hill entered with a reputation on the decline, following his recent suspension for an intentional clear-out of Aric Almirola<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the Austin Hill thing, now if I was Austin Hill coming back after all that, you would have thought for one race you mind your Ps and Qs,\u201d Gluck said. \u201cYou make sure that you don\u2019t run anybody over, you don\u2019t knock Zilisch over on a restart. You do not cause a 45-minute red flag by destroying McDowell and, by the way, Ryan Ellis.\u201d<\/p>\n

The destruction for Ellis was pretty complete. And it co uld have been much worse. Connor Zilisch\u2019s wreck of van Gisbergen aside, as well as his post-race fall, Hill\u2019s contact with McDowell to trigger a huge wreck was probably the story of the day.<\/p>\n

Ellis took it worse than most. Gluck explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe car pretty much went through his windshield,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd he said that\u2019s a radio dead zone, they don\u2019t have spotters in that area anyway. And he tweeted he saw dust and then he saw a car flying in that came in through his windshield. I mean he got lucky. That was a really, really, really bad wreck.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you would have thought if you were Austin Hill, regardless of, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m still gonna race hard.\u2019 Which he said, \u2018I\u2019m not gonna change anything.\u2019 He didn\u2019t. I probably would have for one week. I\u2019m just saying if it was me. But that\u2019s why I\u2019m not a racecar driver, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were two high-profile wrecks in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Watkins Glen. One involved Connor Zilisch and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-66775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}